Top 4 Australian banks to chalk up $30B profit; ANZ to start tracking customer conversations

The country's top banks will be announcing their full-year results this week, and analysts expect the focus to be on signs of worsening bad debts including bank profit margins. According to estimates, the four major banks -- National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank, Wespac and ANZ -- should account for around $30 billion in profit, thanks to barely any loan issue.

"We see mortgage repricing as essential to restoring profitability and preserving dividends," Sydney Morning Herald quoted Citi analyst Craig Williams. However, in spite of the seemingly improving conditions, NAB and ANZ Bank executives will still have to answer questions on capital costs. There have been concerns if the banks can maintain highly prized dividends through their capital costs in time to deliver full-year results to the market.

NAB will announce its results on Wednesday and it is expected to report around $6.26 billion in profit, while market estimates put ANZ's around $7.29 billion. Macquarie Group's earnings will be announced on Friday. Analysts noted that they will be keen to talk to chief executive Nicholas Moore on how the company plans to sustain expected profits.

Macquarie did claim before that it saw profits climbing 55 percent, thanks to favourable trading conditions and an asset sale.

"With first-half 2016 [results] pre-announced, a key focus will be the reliance on performance fees and lumpy items," said Matthew Davison, a senior research analyst at Martin Currie.

"The market will be anticipating further guidance upgrades later in the year, so this result should offer clues as to what might sustain the trend. The resilience of the commodity trading revenues and further M&A growth might be important in offsetting fewer one-off gains moving into 2017. The CAF (corporate asset finance) division and Asian equities are other areas of optimism."

In other news, ANZ is moving past beyond relying on market conditions to change its profitability potential. The bank has started combing through customer conversations for added market intelligence.

ANZ has started using systems to sift through customer transactions and track how people spend money. This can help the bank develop more relevant sales and service “conversations." ANZ customer understanding and insight strategy and design lead Sam Kline said that the bank invested considerably on analysing “time, effort and money."

“When you think about it, people using their credit cards and savings accounts [produce] such rich information,” IT News quoted the executive.

The executive further explained that the gathered information tells so much about their customers. These include their preferences, hobbies, life stages and spending patterns. The bank is monitoring closely spending patterns that are not sudden and their corresponding implications on the lives of the customers.

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